Meditations IV.24
If thou wouldest be tranquil in heart, says the Sage,42 do not many things. Is not this a better maxim: do but what is needful, and what the reason of a living creature born for a civic life demands, and as it demands. For this brings the tranquillity which comes of doing few things no less than of doing them well. For nine tenths of our words and deeds being unnecessary, if a man retrench there, he will have more abundant leisure and fret the less. Wherefore forget not on every occasion to ask thyself, Is this one of the unnecessary things? But we must retrench not only actions but thoughts which are unnecessary, for then neither will distracting actions follow.
- 42.Democritus (Stobaeus i. 100): τὸν εὐθυμεῖσθαι μέλλοντα χρὴ μὴ πολλὰ πρήσσειν; iii. 5; Seneca’s On Tranquility of Mind 12: Hanc stabilem animi sedem Graeci εὐθυμίαν vocant, de qua Democriti volumen egregium est: ego Tranquillitatem voco.
John Stobaeus was a 5th-century compiler of an anthology of excerpts from Greek authors. The Democritus fragment, in translation: “he who would be cheerful must not do many things.” Seneca’s Latin, in translation: “This steady seat of the mind the Greeks call euthymia, on which there is an excellent volume by Democritus; I call it tranquillity.”